Book Review: Disruptors, Discounters, and Doubters

I know Joe Rand, the Chief Creative Officer and Managing Partner of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty. I think he’s one of the smartest guys in the industry, and one of the nicest. I can’t go quite as far as to say he’s a friend, simply because we haven’t gone and done drunken karaoke together, but I respect the man a great deal. Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll do that drunken karaoke together soon and I can count him as one of my friends in the industry. I would like that.

The fact that he wrote a new book on the industry called Disruptors, Discounters, and Doubters only increases that respect. And he was nice enough to send me a copy, which I received yesterday… and devoured in one sitting. I figured, and I assumed he’d figured, I should review it and comment.

First thing I’ll say is that you should go order a copy. Especially if you’re in brokerage management or a strategy role in the residential real estate industry. And I say that despite the fact that in the long list of “brilliant advisors and consultants” he names in the “Who is the Industry?” section, yours truly does not appear. Well, despite my lack of brilliance, I endorse this book wholeheartedly.

For those with short attention spans… TL;DR version:

Joe identifies all of the problems, and I love some of his prescribed solutions because of confirmation bias: they’re many of the exact same solutions I’ve been advocating for years. So I’m inclined to stand up and cheer. But, he ascribes the wrong fundamental reason for the problems (the “original sin”), tries too hard to defend the status quo, and ends up recommending a confused and contradictory set of solutions that ultimately fall short.

Let’s get into it.

A Brief Summary

The overall thesis of Disruptors, Discounters and Doubters is that real estate is built on an “original sin” misconception of the real estate agent as a salesperson, rather than as a salesperson-counselor-project manager-advisor.

That has led to a focus inwardly on the needs of agents-as-salespeople rather than the needs of the consumer. Since salespeople are all about making the sale, Rand ascribes the immense effort and focus on lead generation to the short-term need to make sales. That in turns leads to widespread incompetence, undifferentiated marketing where everybody says the exact same thing and offers the exact same thing (“I’m going to give you great service!” is a sentence he quotes at one point, noting that everybody promises great service at the listing appointment.), vulnerability to Discounters, and so on.

The solution, Rand believe is a C.O.R.E. for Client-Oriented Real Estate. There are five “Keys” to C.O.R.E.:

Stop Thinking Like (Just) a Salesperson

Be Great at Our Jobs

Modernize Our Value Proposition

Improve the Transactional Experience

Stop Doubting Ourselves

He has a number of suggestions under each of these Keys and quite frankly, I love many of them.

For example, he says that agents should turn listing presentations into consultations. That means thinking of the client’s needs in selling rather than you own need to get the listing:

We need to stop thinking like salespeople and start thinking like service professionals. We’ve always taught the listing presentation as a sales opportunity, as a pitch to try to convince the seller to list with us. We have to flip that mind-set, to think of that listing appointment as the first chance we have to start servicing our clients’ needs: to find out what their home is really worth, to learn what they need to do to get their home ready for the market, to calm their concerns about the process, to prepare them for what’s ahead, and to inform them of the services we’re going to provide them.

That’s wonderful! It would be wonderful if the industry were to follow Rand’s advice and start doing things this way.

Ultimately, he says that the industry needs to “stop giving permission” to disruptors and discounters. That means adapting the value proposition as the client’s needs change, focusing more on improving the real estate transaction than on lead generation, and “losing faith in ourselves and in what we do.”

His final sentence: “No one can take our industry without our permission. So let’s stop giving it.”

It’s a stirring ending, and one intended to buck up the spirits of brokers and agents everywhere, get them inspired and get them moving. I felt like standing up and applauding.

Problem is… none of it will actually change anything.

The Bad Assumption at the Heart of it All

The problem is that Rand has mis-identified the “original sin” at the heart of the industry’s problem.

He thinks it is that we all think of the real estate agent as a salesperson. That’s the original sin. One might, following Joe’s lead, call it S.O.R.E. (Salesperson-Oriented Real Estate).

Except that’s not the original sin. Real estate isn’t a new industry; it’s been around for as long as land existed. The old urban myth about Manhattan being sold for $24 of trade goods is an example, especially if the island was sold by Indians passing through with no claim to the island, to a bunch of Dutch rubes. If true, that would make those Indians the first “curbstoner” real estate broker in history of the U.S.

It is strangely contradictory to say that we’ve forgotten about the client’s needs then turn right around and suggest that clients are wrong and mistaken about thinking of real estate agents as salespeople. Because that’s what consumers do: think of real estate agents as people who help them buy or sell a house. They think of agents as salespeople.

But even more fundamentally, you can call real estate agents whatever you wish — counselor, advisor, consultant, shaman — but if you pay them on commission, they’re salespeople.

No job anywhere in the world pays on commission except for sales. Period, end of story, done. Rand brings up lawyers at one point, but lawyers taking on cases on contingency fee basis aren’t collecting a commission: they’re investing in the outcome. Lawsuits are enormously expensive (read the classic work A Civil Action for a great example). Lawyers would much rather you pay them by the hour for that class action lawsuit, but since the plaintiffs often can’t afford it, they invest in the outcome… and take a third or more of the payout.

That’s not taking a commission anymore than a venture capitalist is taking a commission when the startup he invested in goes public.

If Joe really wanted to move away from S.O.R.E. into C.O.R.E., one recommendation has to be to get paid by the hour, rather than by commission. Professionals and advisors get paid for their time, for their expertise, not for results. Only salespeople get paid for results.

Furthermore, the idea that being “just a salesperson” is why the industry is plagued by incompetence, lack of training, brokers going bankrupts, discounters, terrible transaction experiences, etc. is… well… let me put it this way.

Some of the most pleasant, most professional experiences I have ever had was in an environment absolutely filled to the brim with “just salespeople”. I refer to Bergdorf Goodman, one of the very best fashion retail stores in the world, where I once worked.

This right here is “just a salesperson” who refers to herself in the video below at one point as “I’m a clerk.” I give you the legendary Betty Halbreich:

Salespeople can be amazing, wonderful, utterly professional, knowledgeable experts who not only help you buy (and help their employer sell) stuff you want, but make the experience absolutely delightful.

You know what’s true about Betty Halbreich and the rest of the delightful world-class salespeople at Bergdorf Goodman? They’re all W-2 employees of the Neiman Marcus Group, who owns Bergdorf Goodman.

By the way, it isn’t just salespeople. The wonderful concierges and staff at Four Seasons and Intercontinental hotels are W-2 employees. So are the waiters and waitresses at Nobu, Le Bernardin, CUT Steakhouse, Kata Robata, and dozens of other restaurants where I have had some of the most memorable and amazing customer service experiences.

The True Original Sin

Fact is, the real Original Sin of modern real estate is the Re/Max revolution in which brokers chose to abandon their clients, the consumers, to serve their customers, the agents. Remember, when Re/Max came along and upset the 50/50 split apple cart, brokers could have chosen to hire their agents as employees to service their clients. They chose not to.

Joe’s book comes close, so close, so tantalizingly close, but then fails to breakthrough because he is so invested in the post-Re/Max world that residential real estate has become. I don’t blame the man; his day job is as one of the owners of a 1,000-agent brokerage.

So he correctly identifies most of the major issues and problems: short-term thinking, focus on lead-generation, widespread incompetence, lack of training and education, managers incentivized around recruiting and sales of affiliated services, terrible, undifferentiated marketing and value propositions, and on and on. He nails the problems on the head.

But he falters when it comes to solutions. It’s as if he wrote down all of the problems, looked into the abyss of what solutions those problems demanded, gulped, and then stepped aside to go down a different road more traveled.

He even recognizes the problem as the “independent contractor” issue… at some level, at least. He writes:

Basically, in most businesses, you get systems that guide you about how to do your job. But we don’t do that in real estate. Part of the reason is the independent contractor model, which legally restricts brokers from mandating how agents perform their work. So as a broker, I’m not supposed to be able to tell my agents how I want them to show a home, or negotiate a deal, or manage a transaction. And that’s incredibly frustrating.

He then goes on to point out that his brokerage offers wonderful systems and support to his agents, but he can’t make them use any of it. So a consumer walking in has two different experiences, depending on which of his agents she gets. He proclaims that “we need to change that, from the top down” and then… steps back from the obvious logical conclusion towards which he’s been driving.

The obvious conclusion, as we outlined in our recent Future of Real Estate Brokerage Black Paper, is to hire the agents as W-2 employees. Absolutely nothing in any license law of any state prevents the broker from hiring agents as W-2 employees. That way, you can tell your agents how you want them to show a home, or negotiate a deal, or manage a transaction. Frustration, gone! Client experience? Uniform! Voila! La solution, mes amis!

But that’s too difficult to do when you’re running a 1,000-agent brokerage. It’s too difficult for the industry, built these last forty years on the Re/Max agent-centric headcount-driven model, to accept.

So instead, he talks about “setting up systems and standards and protocols.” GOD! SO CLOSE, and yet so far….

Because left out of that “standards and systems and protocols” idea is how you enforce them against independent contractors who source their own business, work their own deals, have their own clients, and really don’t need you for much other than cheap liability insurance. After all, Rand just got finished telling us that he can’t get his agents to use any of his systems, that he “can’t oversee what the agent is doing and help her along the way to make the right decisions.” So how is he going to enforce these wonderful systems and standards and protocols?

By “firing” top producing agents, who generate 80% of the volume for his brokerage, and will find a “job” at the brokerage across the street before the day is out?

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Deck Chairs on the Titanic

As a result of that fundamental flaw, the rest of the suggestions and Keys to Success mostly read like notes of the guy charged with rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Because so much of it, if not all of it, is preaching to the choir.

For example, Rand suggests that the industry redefine pricing as a primary service. It’s a great idea… for an agent who is already experienced, already professional, and already hard working.

Since he can’t get his agents to do anything, including getting good at pricing, rather than a “system or a standard”, this great suggestion will become yet another beg, cajole, plead, and exhort element that the vast majority of agents will simply ignore.

A more concrete, more courageous solution to raising pricing as a primary service might have been: “All real estate agents must complete the apprentice Appraiser program.” But again, that would imperil the headcount-driven business model of contemporary real estate brokerage, and be written off as an unrealistic fantasy. (Ask me how I know.)

His suggestion to raise staging to a primary service is similar. If staging really were such an important service, then brokerages would only hire agents with a design/staging/interior decoration background or at least do a test: “Here, stage this mockup living room.”

But Rand knows, as I do, as you do, that a brokerage who does something like that would find itself at a huge disadvantage in recruiting and retention, and all of those dollars would be walking out the door, not in.

What about this one? He says to “Emphasize the Complexity of Transaction Management.” He thinks that agents don’t emphasize transaction management because it’s not sexy, because it might scare clients away. What he leaves out is that agents don’t emphasize transaction management because many of them don’t do it. They hire $8/hr Transaction Coordinators to actually manage the transaction. In many cases, said Transaction Coordinators are located in the Philippines.

So just how complex and difficult could transaction management be if an $8/hr temp can do it from a different continent?

Granted, later on he says that agents don’t actually need to manage the transaction — just communicate about it. Fine, but then why talk about elevating transaction management to a primary service offering?

Again, if this were a real Tier One value proposition of the modern C.O.R.E. brokerage, then Rand should be recommending that brokerages forbid agents from hiring transaction managers because of the importance of getting their hands dirty in the gritty work of holding the deal together. Well now, that’s a step too far, isn’t it?

And so it goes.

Fact is, once you identify the wrong original sin, you’re stuck with the problem of non-compliance. You cannot get the agent to do anything, not even these wonderful suggestions. So no matter how great the suggestions are, they’re just that: suggestions.

The problem of the industry isn’t leading the horse to water; it’s to get the horse to drink the water. On that point, there is no answer here.

Where’s the Data? Where’s the Case Study?

One of the more interesting absences in the book is a total lack of data and case studies.

I’m a consultant and blogger. I’m bound by confidentiality both legal and ethical. I can’t and won’t talk about initiatives and programs my clients have or are implementing. Because they’re not my initiatives and programs. Joe on the other hand is the broker/owner of a major brokerage affiliated with a national franchise. He has no such problems.

Where are the case studies from his own brokerage? Where’s the data from the decades of operations from Rand Realty?

For instance, at one point Joe writes:

I think that most responsible agents understand that the brokerage needs to retain enough company dollars to pay for the services that are necessary to help agents do their job for the client. And I think that most of them recognize that the brokerage needs to make a modest profit on the business to justify the commitment that those brokers make and the risks they take.

Okay… so what have his own agents at his own brokerage said? What is Rand Realty’s Company Dollar, especially from their highest producers? What profit margin for his risks and commitment do his responsible agents agree to? There’s no confidentiality problem here: it’s his own company. If he wants to tell the rest of us that as a result of these responsible agents recognizing the broker’s need to turn a profit, Rand Realty operates at 35% Company Dollar and 10% Net Income margins against GCI Revenue… now we’re talking!

Absent that, if Rand Realty is operating at the industry average of 3% Profit Margin on 15% Company Dollar… well… then no, I don’t know that “most responsible agents” understand anything of the sort. In fact, my experience is that responsible agents will express great sorrow and regret at having to leave the brokerage for a competitor offering higher splits… but they’re still going to leave. “I love you guys, and let’s stay friends, but you know, I have to do what’s right for my family!”

I have never heard of a single top producing agent turning down higher splits upon reaching whatever production level required. “Hey, I know I’m at 60/40 now, and I qualified for 80/20 with my production, but… you know what, Joe? You keep the 40%; you deserve it for the commitment you’re making and the risk you’re taking.” I have literally never heard of that happening anywhere in North America.

What about all of the Keys to Success? Joe runs a brokerage. Has he implemented them in his 1,000-agent brokerage? If he has, what has been the result?

Are his agents required to follow Rand Realty’s systems and standards and protocols? If they do not, does he fire them no matter what their production level? He might — he’s a man of integrity, so he just might. But he doesn’t tell us that in the book.

Do all of his agents elevate staging as a primary service? If so, he doesn’t tell us, nor how that has worked for them or for his brokerage.

Are Rand Realty’s managers and agents incentivized on client satisfaction results, as Redfin’s managers and agents are? They might be, but Joe doesn’t tell us, nor does he detail out how that kind of compensation plan works and what the positive financial benefits are from that.

One interesting peek with a kinda-sorta case study comes from the section in which Rand talks about helping the clients actually move. He writes:

As a broker, I look at moving and think, “Okay, so now I have to deal with angry phone calls every time someone breaks a lamp on the truck? No thanks!” Hawking loans is enough trouble as it is.

But he just spent that section talking about the importance of last impressions, and how defining the client responsibilities as ending the moment that title transfers as the bad old way of thinking like a salesperson.

So why no thanks? Why not embrace the low margin, high headache business of moving? That’s client-oriented real estate thinking, instead of the salesperson oriented thinking, isn’t it (And for the record, I don’t know how low the margins are in moving, but I’ll bet they’re higher than the 3% average margins of real estate brokerage….)

Instead, Rand Realty signs people up for Updater, a startup that helps people move. That’s better than nothing, I suppose, but “outsource key value propositions to third parties” doesn’t strike me as a revolutionary act that changes the old salesperson thinking paradigm or results from such changes.

For all we know, Rand Realty is the poster child of the C.O.R.E. philosophy, and they do all of the things that Joe Rand recommends in the book. And they have story after story, case study after case study, drawing on their own experiences and own implementations that showcase the business benefits of C.O.R.E. With such stories and case studies showcasing the amazing financial benefits of the C.O.R.E. model, brokerages and agents everywhere would flock to adopt it.

But no stories and case studies and data exist in the book, and I think that’s a real missed opportunity.

Conclusion & Wrap-Up

With all of the reservations, I still think everyone should buy this book and read it. It’s only 130 pages or so. You can read it in one sitting.

Joe nails the problems down cold. He sees them clearly. His suggestions are solid, and every agent and broker in North America should adopt them or at least consider them. Changing the mindset of the industry from the salesperson oriented thinking to a client-oriented one is a truly positive change.

But the work is flawed by the misidentification of the core original sin. It stems from either the inability or the unwillingness to confront the true original sin: the 1099 independent contractor status of real estate agents, coupled with the Re/Max agent-centric headcount-based model, and the resulting abandonment of the client by the broker.

And I can’t help but feel that Joe is invested in the status quo, quite literally, since his family’s brokerage firm is operating under the traditional headcount based independent contractor model. He sees the problems, and sees the logical conclusion coming at him, and chooses to step aside rather than tackle it head-on. That’s too bad.

As a result, Joe is preaching to the choir. Some brokers and agents will adopt some of his ideas, and that’s a real positive. But the vast majority won’t, because they’re not interested in working hard, not interested in getting good at their jobs, not interested in being more than “just a salesperson” and not interested in the longterm.

More fundamentally, it is not clear that even those brokers who do adopt the C.O.R.E. way of thinking will see real improvement in their bottomline. Even if you do all of the things that Joe recommends, there’s no data, no case study, no nothing that then says to that broker, “If you do these things, you will take your profit margin from the pitiful 2.5% you have today to 11%.”

This is an industry. It’s a business. Brokers aren’t doing what they’re doing for charity, or for their health. Without a clear roadmap from the low-margin, everything sucks, present of S.O.R.E. (Salesperson Oriented Real Estate) to C.O.R.E. (Client-Oriented Real Estate), I don’t know that Joe has made the business case for brokers and agents to adopt his platform.

Nonetheless, the suggestions are really good. They’re the kinds of things that conscientious agents would implement, which means that conscientious brokers would support those efforts. And even if it’s only 20% of the agents who implement his suggestions, that’s 20% better than today, so it’s an improvement.

Managing Partner of 7DS Associates, and the grand poobah of this here blog. Once called "a revolutionary in a really nice suit", people often wonder what I do for a living because I have the temerity to not talk about my clients and my work for clients. Suffice to say that I do strategy work for some of the largest organizations and companies in real estate, as well as some of the smallest startups and agent teams, but usually only on projects that interest me with big implications for reforming this wonderful, crazy, lovable yet frustrating real estate industry of ours.

6 Comments

Join the discussion and state your opinion. Some comments may be held in moderation. I try to get to them as soon as possible, but may be traveling or unable to approve comments immediately. I do not censor comments, but reserve the right to remove anything that looks like spam, trolling, or just outright inappropriate.

When one of the smartest investors in our lifetime, Warren Buffett, puts his money into a real estate brokerage based in a system you call dysfunctional, who do you really think is more likely to be making the right call?
There are problems with the model, and I absolutely concur the employee based brokerage would improve the bottom line results if it was industry wide. But, it won’t be anytime soon, and to continue to pursue solutions to problems following the employee model as a keystone is of little value to the industry, brokers or owners.
Joe lives in the real world of real estate. He has a real investment that mirrors that of many other successful firms. Knowing him from the company’s Prudential days I would fully expect solid, practical and inventive proposals for improving the business to be at the heart of his argument.
I would also suggest it is counter intuitive to believe fewer decision makers (broker owners who control the process by the fiat of the employee/employer relationship) will bring a better experience to the consumer. There is a reason literally billions of dollars have been thrown at the residential real estate industry by disrupters and yet to date the business is fundamentally the same in structure. Innovation has free rein and flows through the business like water. Good ideas are copied and multiply, poor ones are discarded. Profits fluctuate but also endure and now come from multiple avenues into larger brokerages. The entire team concept flys in the face of centralized control, and it is thriving today.
While far from perfect the current consumer experience in buying and selling a home is better, has more control in their hands and is less costly than 20 or 10 years ago. There has been a sea change in data access and much more focus on the consumer experience throughout the transaction, all the while occurring under the umbrella of the so called traditional brokerage.
Tilting at windmills does little compared to building better ones.

“The brilliant Rob Hahn has written a piercing and perceptive review of my book “DIsruptors, Discounters, and Doubters” that is a really smart and original take on the not just the book but the entire industry. I thank him for so many of his kind words, and mostly (and ruefully) agree with his criticisms. If you read the book, the review is worth reading. If you didn’t, it’s still worth reading on it’s own.”

You were saying?

Plus, this:

“There is a reason literally billions of dollars have been thrown at the residential real estate industry by disrupters and yet to date the business is fundamentally the same in structure. Innovation has free rein and flows through the business like water.”

I think that’s hilarious coming from someone who is licensed by the government to make a living, and works in an industry dominated by government regulation.

But your point, basically, is that real estate is more or less perfect as it is, as it is the product of unfettered innovation and competition?

Not at all my point. But, I think our view from inside the sausage factory of real estate brokerage gives us a different view of the consumer experience.
The claim that somehow government regulation has anything more than a nominal effect on the day to day behavior of brokers is just as hilarious to me. The oversight is state by state, with an overall low barrier to entry. The average broker never has any interaction with a regulator except to renew their license. Their hair cutter and manicurist have higher standards to meet to get licensed and to keep it.
We encounter regulation in a meaningful way on the f8nancial side of the transaction, mostly in relation to the financing needed by most to buy real estate.
Disrupters have so far done little, if anything meaningful on their own, and fail to make a profit. They bleed money even when they are able to get consumer engagement, and have not been able to get any real market share on the brokerage side of the equation. Redfin’s search may be a preferred platform for some consumers, but that does not transfer into sales that can support the cost, so they continue to lose money. How is that w-2 model working for them? How did it work for Zip or e-realty? Do you not think Zillow has considered the brokerage route? They certainly have and also have walked away from it.
The list of darling broker models Rob has fawned over is substantial. Non have a profit margin even close to yours. Most will disappear as soon as they lose their funding, because they do not make a profit.
Did you see Keller Williams becoming the largest brokerage in the US? Teams ruling production? Zillow beating out Realtor.com? These things happened largely due to innovation from within the traditional brokerage model, and continue to thrive there as the brokerages embrace them, morph and accommodate and improve. The impression of the public with the professionalism of real estate brokers has dramatically improved in the last decade, is it only a coincidence the innovations from technology and decentralization of performance standards tested in the marketplace occurred at the same time?
Changing the mantra of your firm, a new mission statement that focuses on the consumer experience, these are hardly sea changes in a business model when viewed from the outside, nor are teams, or better email campaigns and transaction coordinators. What consumers do notice is the same thing, how well they are treated and assisted by the broker on the ground they work with. The best want freedom to do their business as they want, and maximum compensation.
If you want more uniformity and less variance in the business model, going to the W-2 employee model will get that result.
If you want to stay relevant, and be competitive, I hold the W-2 model is not going to get you there, and so far, so does the market.
And yes, I hold out innovation is rampant in this business. New things are tried every day, copied when successful, discarded or revamped when not.
Smart broker owners build a framework for letting ideas flow freely, and also put the initial risk of an new initiative on the broker who has their income on the line. Respectfully, I do not think the vast majority of broker owners, especially of larger firms, have the same ability to see over the horizon, or a willingness to take the risk of looking at their business from a new angle and investing in that view. It is not what they want to do, are expected to do and reward is usually in reducing risk for them, not taking it.
The commission salesperson is not about only preserving their base business. They are risk takers by design. It is sometimes messy, often uncomfortable, but also powerful when it touches a positive nerve with consumers.
Yes, much to improve. No, the employment model, in the foreseeable future, will not get you there if “there”is profitability, innovation and an enhanced consumer experience.

“If Joe really wanted to move away from S.O.R.E. into C.O.R.E., one recommendation has to be to get paid by the hour, rather than by commission. Professionals and advisors get paid for their time, for their expertise, not for results.”

BINGO -You nailed it Rob. There it is, hiding in plain sight, the real original sin: The commission-only business model. Yet for some reason, you skew off onto identifying, like Joe, another false demon… “the independent contractor status of real estate agents, coupled with the Re/Max agent-centric headcount-based model, and the resulting abandonment of the client by the broker.” … which is simply just another consequence of the commission-only model.

Whichever way you look at it, “commission-only” is at the root of our entire industry, and therefore the fundamental thing upon which everything else flows. Until that is changed, everything else is just a band-aid & wishful thinking.

For what it’s worth, we restated real estate as a ‘Professional Service’ just 2.5 years ago. Which changes everything about how we operate; our purpose, our culture, our core values, the services we offer, the advice we give, the strategies we use, our fees, the relationship with our clients – the lot.

The results? Well, they have been overwhelmingly positive – for both our clients and us. Sure it’s still early days, we’re a startup so to speak. However, I can categorically say after 25yrs previously operating in the traditional model, there’s no way I’ll be going back to it.

On a final note, it intrigues me that so many in our industry are seeing the need for change, but just can’t bring themselves to face the real problem. They just can’t seem to imagine a world of real estate without commission-only – which of course keeps them stuck in the status quo.

I will keep this short…I was waiting for the solution after agreeing with the premise….yes agents are bereft value propositions…yes the industry is awash with too many mediocre agents…yes what good agents do is important & honorable but the public is not aware of that….so the solution is….just build a better brokerage.
I don’t think that will stunt the disrupters, discounters and doubters (throw in denigrators for that matter)…he brings up noble points…agent ratings by the public, agent ratings of each other (like uber), transparency of production, etc…but he does not demand them…just suggest them.
Eliminating independent contractor status, creating standards of practice that include transparency, value propositions and stellar customer service might do it…but without substantive changes in our industry disrupters, discounters and doubters won’t be a nuisance..they will be the drivers of our industry.